The modern communications era has brought about a tremendous expansion of wireline and wireless networks. Computer networks, television networks, and telephony networks are experiencing an unprecedented technological expansion, fueled by consumer demand. Wireless and mobile networking technologies have addressed related consumer demands, while providing more flexibility and immediacy of information transfer.
Current and future networking technologies continue to facilitate ease of information transfer and convenience to users by expanding the capabilities of mobile electronic devices. To facilitate easier or faster information transfer and convenience, many electronic devices utilize firmware which is a combination of software and hardware. For instance, firmware may be a computer program that is embedded in a hardware device. Additionally, firmware may be the programmable content of a hardware device, which may consist of machine language instructions for a processor, or configuration settings for a device. These settings may at least partially define the functionality of an electronic device. Currently, if a manufacturer of an electronic device desires to update the functionality of the electronic device because of changes or additions to the potential functionality of the electronic device that were introduced following the deployment of the electronic device or for some other reason, the parameters, settings, instructions or the like that define the updated functionality of the electronic device may need to be flashed to the firmware of the electronic device. In other words, the settings or parameters relating to the functionality of the electronic device that reside in the firmware (e.g., a read only memory (ROM) and/or flash memory) of the electronic device may need to be re-programmed to update the functionality of the electronic device.
Making changes to firmware such as by re-programming the firmware in an electronic device(s) to change the functionality of an electronic device may be an expensive and time consuming task for a manufacturer, service provider or the like, especially in situations where there are many electronic devices (e.g., mobile phones) deployed in the marketplace.
As such, there is an existing need to be able to update the functionality of an electronic device in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. For example, it would be desirable to be able to update the parameters, settings, instructions or the like that at least partially define the functionality of an electronic device in an efficient manner.